I don't know what was wrong with Joe Biden. It's hard to imagine that they ever would have asked for a debate if this was the way he is normally. We've seen him recently holding press conferences and giving speeches and he seemed to be fine. They said he had a cold so maybe he really was on drugs — Nyquil or Mucinex or something that made him seem so shaky and frail. Whatever it was, it was a terrible debate for him and if he does stay in the race (which is almost certain in my opinion) the campaign is going to have a lot of work to do to dig out of the hole that was dug last night. The media smells blood and they are circling like a bunch of starved piranhas.
. . . For some odd reason, moderator Jake Tapper told Trump in the beginning that he didn't need to answer the questions and that he could use the time however he wanted. Trump ran with that, essentially giving a rally speech whenever he had the floor and was unresponsive to the vast majority of the questions. He made faces and insulted Biden to his face, at one point calling him a criminal and a Manchurian candidate. If anyone had said 10 years ago that this would happen at a presidential debate they would have been laughed out of the room.
After the debate when most of the country had turned off cable news or gone to bed, CNN aired its fact check. And it's a doozy:
It sure would have been good if even some of that epic litany of lies could have been checked while people were still watching. The decision to have the moderators sit like a couple of potted plants woodenly asking questions about child care while Trump responded with irrelevant lies was inexplicable. Why did they even bother to ask questions at all? They could have just run the timer and let the candidates talk for two minutes each about anything they wanted. It probably would have been more enlightening.
view the rest of the comments
politics
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
Lincoln’s second term was a third party victory running under the Union party.
It’s also a great example of a third party causing a major party to change its position for the better because it represents creating a new, broad coalition including a bunch of extant parties that popped up to capitalize on new identities and platforms that sprang into being in the lead up to the civil war and during it.
You know, it’s almost like if you think we’re headed for another civil war then there’s a lesson there…
Of course if you wanna stick with recent stuff, Perot 92, like I said, had a positive effect on both parties because his campaign forced them to talk about nafta instead of glossing over the fact that both Clinton and hw bush held the same incredibly anti-worker positions and neither was interested in wrestling with the details of how the trade agreement would impact American lives.
In this very moment both Biden and trump are trying to bring back (or recreate!) the American jobs lost to nafta.
It’s almost like there’s a lesson there…
Another great example of a third party causing one of the two major parties to change their platform was Nader 2000, who literally ran on the platform of pushing the democrats left and suddenly, as if like a bolt from the blue, the democrats ran more left campaigns in 04 and 08.
Surely there’s no lesson there…
I already detailed explicitly why and how your description of third party votes as protest votes is wrong and represents a fundamentally flawed understanding of the American electoral process, so instead of rehashing that, I’ll talk about the Simpsons.
There’s a funny bit where two tentacled space aliens with big sharp teeth are campaigning to get American votes on different platforms that both boil down to killing and eating their constituents in slightly different ways. A guy pipes up and says “I don’t like any of this killing and eating business, I’m gonna vote third party!” And one of the aliens says “go ahead, throw your vote away!” And the guy takes on a sheepish expression and sits back down.
It’s very funny.
Not because voting third party is throwing your vote away, the conceit of the bit is that voting for either the democrat or republican monster would be throwing your vote away because they intend to kill and eat you, but because the person who steps out and voices an alternative is so afraid of the possibility losing that he can’t continue to speak out against the explicit guarantee of losing.
As I said before, your vote is the only way you can force politicians to listen to you. Don’t throw it away telling them that you’ll stand with them even when they commit atrocities, make it clear that if they need your vote they have to take up your platform.
If you do anything but vote third party you’re literally, not figuratively, literally, explicitly, in writing, expressing support for the democrats and republicans genocide.
Don’t do that.